I as have others, may have wondered how long it would be before the BBC either denied or played down the Holocaust because the issue made those who work for the BBC politically uncomfortable? I once believed that it would be a long time before we saw even the BBC sinking that low.

Unfortunately it appears that I’ve had to wait considerably less time to see the BBC leaving out the Holocaust on a timeline of German history when it should have been included. The BBC has published a potted history of Hitler and Nazi Germany aimed at GCSE students without mentioning the Holocaust once. Yes they mention the Nuremberg Laws the legislation that the Nazis used to exclude German Jews from public life in Germany but that’s about it.

Here’s what the BBC published, but the furore about this is growing so I expect them to quietly edit it soon. Can you see what’s missing from this BBC piece? Yes that’s right it’s the Holocaust. This danger of the BBC quietly editing this piece and saying ‘nothing to see here’ is why I’ve pasted it almost in its entirety below minus a bit about the Great Depression which was not relevant to the BBC’s lack of reporting in this piece about the Holocaust.

The BBC said:

July 1925

Mein Kampf

Hitler served just nine months of his sentence in the Bavarian fortress of Landsberg am Lech. Here he wrote Mein Kampf, defining his political vision.

For him, the state was not an economic entity but racial. He declared the superiority of a white Aryan race, with particular vitriol reserved for the Jews he viewed as “parasites”. Their elimination, he said, “must necessarily be a bloody process”. Mein Kampf outlined the central tenets of a Germany under Nazi control – military expansion, elimination of “impure” races and dictatorial authoritarianism. After its publication in July 1925, the book saw more exposure for Hitler’s views.

January 1933

Leader of Germany

Now a German citizen, Hitler led the Nazis to become the largest party in Germany with over 37% of the popular vote in the elections of July 1932.

German President von Hindenburg’s concern at growing Communist support persuaded him to give Hitler the post of Chancellor in January. Hitler quickly consolidated his position. By March he had dictatorial powers courtesy of the Enabling Act, which allowed him to pass laws without Reichstag approval. Political parties, organisations and unions unassociated with the Nazis were soon disbanded. But Hitler still needed the support of the army to fulfil the vision he had outlined in Mein Kampf.

June 1934

The Night of the Long Knives

Army leaders were wary of the paramilitaries who had helped Hitler to power. He allayed those concerns ruthlessly, tightening his own grip on power.

The leader of the SA, Ernst Röhm, was among hundreds assassinated in one night as Hitler purged his party. Röhm’s commitment to ‘continuing revolution’ was not conducive to Hitler’s own ambitions. He could not tolerate opposition to his plans to suppress workers’ rights and make Germany ready for war. The army, however, approved and after President Hindenburg died in August, they supported Hitler’s elevation to Führer. Hitler was now in total control.

September 1935

Nuremberg Laws

Since 1933 the Nazis had tried to exclude Jews and other ‘undesirables’ from public life. In 1935 a new phase began – enforced biological segregation.

At the annual Nuremberg rally Hitler announced laws denying Jewish people citizenship and prohibiting marriage or sexual relations with people of “German or related blood”. Anyone with three or more Jewish grandparents was affected, irrespective of their own religious identity. Hitler characterised the laws as an effort to “achieve the legislative regulation of a problem which, if it breaks down again, will then have to be transferred by law to the National Socialist Party for final solution”.

September 1938

Appeasement and expansion

With his vision under way domestically, Hitler set his sights beyond Germany’s borders. Lebensraum – territorial expansion – was next on his agenda.

In March Hitler triumphantly led Nazi troops into Austria, achieving his goal of unifying the country of his birth and the country he ruled. His next target was the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. Convinced that neither Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister, nor his French counterpart Edouard Daladier wanted war, Hitler pressed his demands. At a conference in Munich organised by Chamberlain, those demands were met. Nazi troops marched into Czechoslovakia and took the Sudetenland.

September 1939

The gambler

Spurred by his success at Munich, Hitler looked east to Poland. But first he had to make a deal with Stalin’s USSR.

Hitler was willing to set aside his hatred of Communism for strategic gain. The two powers agreed the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact in late August. Hitler believed his path was clear and on 1 September the invasion of Poland began. It was a gamble – the German Army was not yet at full strength. But Hitler was confident Britain and France would not go to Poland’s aid any more than they had for Austria or Czechoslovakia. He was wrong. Britain and France declared war on 3 September.

June 1940

Hitler’s revenge

Though he’d lost the gamble, Hitler was winning the war. Poland fell quickly. The Blitzkrieg tactics of the German Army destroyed all before them.

When France surrendered on 17 June, Hitler took revenge for the German defeat more than two decades before. Hitler ensured the French submission should take place at Compiegne, in the same train carriage Germany had been forced to sign the Armistice ending the First World War. There, in a forest clearing, stood a monument to that day: “Here on the 11th of November 1918 succumbed the criminal pride of the German Empire”. At the scene of Germany’s greatest humiliation, Hitler now stood in triumph.

1941

New enemies

Despite the Nazi-Soviet Pact, Hitler retained a staunch hatred of Communism. Extension of Lebensraum in the east was always his ultimate aim.

Hitler was extremely suspicious of Stalin. He’d initially planned to complete the subjugation of Western Europe before turning to the Soviet Union. When Soviet troops occupied the Baltic States, he decided to invade. Hitler was convinced the Red Army could be defeated in a matter of months. He was wrong. He compounded his error by declaring war on another powerful enemy, the US.

February 1943

A wrong turn

As the German invasion of the USSR foundered, Hitler assumed day-to-day operational command of the army, convinced only he could succeed.

Hitler was now directing the entire army from his headquarters, thousands of miles away. In spring 1942 he was convinced the Soviets would be defeated if his army followed his plan to the letter. He was proven wrong at Stalingrad. Freezing, starving and hopelessly outnumbered, German forces could not hold the city. “Surrender is forbidden,” Hitler said. His commanders on the ground chose to ignore the order. For the first time Hitler faced sustained personal criticism because of the defeat.

June 1944

Asleep at the wheel

Hitler’s intransigence had left German forces in retreat in the east. Now, his mistrust and refusal to delegate cost them dearly in the west.

When Allied troops landed on French soil on D-Day, Hitler was asleep in his Eagle’s Nest retreat. No significant decisions could be taken without his authorisation. Crucial German panzer divisions which may have delayed the Allied invasion could not be moved until Hitler woke up. The landings were a success. Germany was now fighting and losing a war on two fronts. Yet Hitler had met the news with enthusiasm, believing his forces could finally take the US and Britain out of the war.

1944 A weakening grip

As Germany’s military situation deteriorated, opposition to Hitler grew among the army elite. Many of his previously loyal commanders wanted him dead.

Hitler was increasingly paranoid, and frequently modified his schedule at the last moment. But on 20 July an opportunity came at last. Hitler was meeting with top military aides at the Wolf’s Lair field headquarters. A senior army officer, Lt Col Claus von Stauffenberg, left a bomb in a briefcase in the conference room. At 12.42 pm it went off. A stenographer and three officers died. Hitler was lucky to escape with only minor injuries, shielded from the full force of the blast by an oak table.

April 1945

Defeat and death

As Soviet troops closed in on his bunker in Berlin, Hitler accepted the inevitability of his defeat. He set into action his plan to take his own life.

Hours beforehand, he married Eva Braun, who had remained by his side for 11 years. They were wed early on the morning of 29 April. The next day, at a little after 3.30 pm, they bit into thin glass vials of cyanide. Hitler then shot himself through the head. The man responsible for untold suffering, who had almost single-handedly brought the world to the very brink of destruction, was dead.”

Here’s the link

https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/articles/zbrx8xs#zr9f6rd

GB News has also noticed this strange omission of the Holocaust, one of the most distinctive features of Hitler’s rule in Germany and said:

“The short biography attempts to draw a comprehensive timeline of events of the Nazi’s life, from birth, to the rise of the Nazis, to his rule over Germany until his death – but appears to omit a number of atrocities committed against the Jews.

As a result, the corporation has been urged to revise the “woefully inadequate” resource, stressing that combatting antisemitism begins at school.”

https://www.gbnews.com/news/bbc-bitesize-fury-adolf-hitler-biography-holocaust-antisemitism

I can’t get my head around why the BBC would publish this sort of thing? Who or what are they trying to protect or pander to by leaving out the Holocaust in a BBC teaching aid aimed at GCSE students? No matter how crap you might believe the BBC to be, the reality once you do a bit of digging at what they are up to is a great deal worse. Someone in the BBC or one of their partner organisations produced this and someone else signed it off. How on earth did such a glaring historical error get through and was this error deliberate?